"How do we pay for healthcare?" seems a bullshit question, even on its face

[Stinky The Clown]

First, what is the national priority? We can afford wars. Why not health care?

Then there's the whole notion that it has to involve an increase in taxes. Well ......... maybe. But maybe what now gets paid to the Insuresters gets diverted to the public option.

This is not an issue that can be reduced to a right-wing-favoring sound bite. It is a serious and **very** complex issue.

[phantom power]

1. Absolutely. The whole point is, we *wouldn't* be paying huge private premiums.

At worst, it would be a wash, and it should be easy to show an improvement, due to higher efficiencies of scale and reduced profit motives.

[spanone]

2. how do we pay for anything?

[Auggie]

3. It is a bullshit question, meant to confuse, mislead and delay.

[Greyhound]

12. Bingo! We are already paying more than is needed, it is the insurance industry

that sucks up so much that there isn't enough left to care for all.

[stray cat]

4. You and I pay for it with tax dollars - easy - increase taxes across the board

since it is coverage for all. If its that important to us individuals have to pay for it with increased taxes - nothing is free.

[YOY]

5. You forgot to mention one thing. When you're not paying for Medical Insurance you have more money.

That same amount is taxed (perhaps less even) and it goes into a proper single payer system.

The only one who loses out are the middleman parasites.

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. Before that

We should make sure that taxes are actually paid. Kill all the loopholes, THEN roll the taxes back to where they were when Eisenhower was President. And make that retroactive for anyone who has a billion or more.

[Thothmes]

23. Why not just make it retroactive to all.

[Sebastian Doyle]

26. Well, I doubt reversing those tax cuts would affect anybody but the ultra rich anyway.

But my point is that the Bush/Rockefeller/Rothschild types who have made most of their money in the last 40 or 50 years simply because they were undertaxed should be made to pay for it.

[Thothmes]

29. Why.

IMO, we all have a dog in this fight. Most of us can afford to be taxed to support the national health plan. That is the way it should be. There are those that, because of their circumstance, cannot afford to be taxed for the program. All the rest of us should be willing to be taxed to support the program.

[ljm2002]

6. I disagree with one thing you say here:

"This is not an issue that can be reduced to a right-wing-favoring sound bite."

In fact it has been reduced to exactly that, i.e. the question that you cite in the OP title: "How do we pay for healthcare?"

You have identified the exact core of the problem with our healthcare debate. It is indeed being presented as "How do we pay for it", which is a very effective sleight-of-hand which distracts from the real-world issues of "Why do we pay more for health care than any other industrialized nation?" and "Why are our outcomes so poor compared to other industrialized nations?" and "Why do so many people in this country lack any health care at all?" and "Why do even the insured have to fight for every penny from the insurance companies?" and "Why is it acceptable to trap people in jobs they don't like because they can't get health coverage for pre-existing conditions?" and "Why is it okay to hamstring our domestic companies with high health care costs so they cannot be competitive with foreign companies?" et-fucking-cetera.

[ejpoeta]

10. AMEN!!

[Triana]

7. ...

1. get out of Iraq and reduce military spending
2. tax religious groups and churches
3. crack down on corporate loopholes and overseas tax havens
4. return tax levels for the richest Americans back to Clinton-era levels (puny increase that they can well afford)


That's a start....

[Psychic Consortium]

8. No more millionaires and billionaires in the insurance and health care industry.

Then there will be plenty of money to take care of all sick people.

[ejpoeta]

9. perhaps the fact that we are already paying for it more than once should count for something.

I mean, we pay our insurance premiums, we pay our taxes which go towards medicare and medicaid... plus we pay extra because we pay higher prices when the uninsured get sick and end up at the ER. I wonder what the total cost is when you factor all these things in together.

Another thing is... is germany have a system like ours? because they say there would be no innovation if there were national healthcare... but when i was watching that story about the missing link (the lemur fossil)... they went to the place where the most modern and advanced MRI machine in the world is.... and it was in germany. just sayin. i thought we were the only country innovating for drugs and medical advances because we have the BEST system and the one everyone else envies.

[Mythsaje]

14. It's a flat-out lie.

Much of Europe and Scandinavia has been on the leading edge for years...decades, even.

More disinformation to confuse the masses. Unfortunately, for them, I'm not sure the masses are all that confused anymore.

[ejpoeta]

24. exactly. that was my point. there was innovation before big insurance and

the profitable medical field. somehow we got things like polio vaccines and penicillin and so many other things that we take for granted today. The only thing that would change would be the middleman. If you could buy straight from the dealer instead of having to pay the middleman to get the car, thus saving yourself a lot of money.... would you not do that?? i know. bad analogy.

[Mythsaje]

30. Not that bad. Makes sense to me. n/t

[Mythsaje]

13. I think the real question is

"How can we afford NOT to pay for health care?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5790991&mesg_id=5790991

[rhett o rick]

15. Same way we pay for defense. Defense isn't worth much if you can't keep you population

alive.

[truedelphi]

16. We pay for NOThaving health care by

Consigning anyone over the age of forty five who is jobless with an impression that they may always be jobless.

I have been told to my face that my being hired would mean my new employer would face higher premiums, so to "Not hold my breath"

GM went overseas in part to avoid paying the $ 2200 per annum in health care fees they were shelling out for the workers' health care.

Et Cetera.

[Papa Boule]

17. I doubt they'll be asking "how do we pay for it" if there's another round of bank bailouts

like some are predicting.

So yes it's a bullshit question.

[cascadiance]

18. Simple... remove the cap for payroll tax and expand medicare funded by it to cover everyone...

A) payroll tax currently is a regressive tax that works against us in so many ways, and perhaps if the lower half of our economy continues to get decimated it will have far less funds and therefore undergo more than just the recent update to not index social security benefits for inflation this year...

B) Medicare is funded by it already. With more revenue coming in to it by removing the cap, it could be made the mechanism to fund single payer, and at the same time be made a progressive tax instead (even if it is kept a flat rate).

Removing the cap could be called a way of giving tax increases to those making under $250k that would violate Obama's commitment not to increase taxes on this group of people.

This could be solved by lowering the percentage rate of payroll tax to make it so there's no increase at all for those under $250k. Now, if that still doesn't generate enough revenue to cover social security and an expanded medicare program, then perhaps find other ways to address this via income tax supplements or other corporate tax supplements to the fund or the like. But that would be a good chunk for starters, and if it could be made self-contained without any additional taxes, other than making it progressive, would be a simple way to do it.

And even if those between $100k and $250k pay a little more on a graduated basis as they approach $250k, I'd bet many of them would prefer to pay that small chunk of payroll tax than the bigger insurance liabilities (and problems with what's covered, etc.) that we have today with our present system.

[GreenTea]

19. "Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy"

"Only single-payer national health insurance can make universal, comprehensive coverage affordable by saving the hundreds of billions we now waste on insurance overhead and bureaucracy."

"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote.

"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."

The researchers, whose work was paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.

"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.

"For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection," he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idU...

"Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year," the report reads.

[truedelphi]

22. Our household's bankrupcy was medical related. And -

And if Congress would simply change some of the tax laws, we would have avoided it.

I mean, I am all for Universal Single Payer, but in the mean time, while the Powers that be get their act together, let people take money out of certain rigidly guided retirement plans, without incurring penalties or huge taxes.

And let everyone who pays out of pocket health or insurance costs get those at 100% deductible.

We are waiting right now to see if the exclusions we just made on an amended return will cut it with the people in the IRS "amendments" Department. It all depends on which person in that dept gets to work on it.

One woman there is wonderful, and understands every in and out. Another person there is a major jack ass and told me over the phone not to bother, because he has the power to refuse any and all applications for amendment.

[ejpoeta]

25. true.

"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."

and of those how many had health insurance.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. Consider this:

If you are paying for insurance now and you opt for a public plan, the dollars you and your employer pay get diverted to that plan ...... and you will probably get a rebate on the collective amount.

If you are paying for insurance out of pocket, you pay that money in taxes if you opt for a public plan ..... and you will either get a rebate or you will get better insurance than you have now.

In short ..... we are paying for first rate health care right now. We just aren't getting what we're paying for.

[Mike 03]

21. Absolutely correct. Any excuse regarding the alleged unaffordability of health

care is a crock of the first magnitude, and we must keep repeating this over and over.

We just squandered a trillion on an illegal war.

[lefthandedlefty]

27. Simple take it away from the Military

Stop the wars save 300 billion cut 50 percent of military budget save another 350 billion,just how much would be spent on healthcare anyway.If other states are like KY state police cuts could save a few more dollars,they seem to be the biggest employer here in KY.Since labor wages have been cut why not cut wages of all elected officials by say 30 percent that would help quite a bit would it not.Since blue collar workers are expected to take a pay cut why not everyone else?In my opinion not one person is any better or any worse than any else so why not be equal with everyone?

[bamacrat]

28. What if instead of paying outrageous premiums each month a reasonable health care tax were enacted.

I pay $411 a month for me and my wife to have health insurance. 2 people, my employer pays half and it sucks because he has no married plus one, so the religious baby factories I work with pay the same as I do, one of them is 27 and expecting their 4th kid. That is fucked up.

If there were a tax that was say 300 dollars per person for healthcare and I never had to pay premiums, I would be down for that. After my premiums are taken out I barely have enough money to pay my bills and go to the doctor if I had to. My wife is still in school so I am the sole income. I work for a small business and dont have the luxury of a large pooled insurance account like some. If our taxes are already providing the ability for someone with no coverage to go to a emergency room for free then why cant I. copays and deductibles are the biggest scam. I pay almost $5000 a year just for coverage before my copays and deductibles, but couldnt afford if something were to actually happen.

All I need it for is so she can get her birth control and alergy medicine, I havent been to the doctor but one time in the past 5 years. Rip off.

[Telly Savalas]

31. "Can we afford healthcare?" is a bullshit question.

"How do we pay for it?" - that is how should we organize the funding of the healthcare system, is a question that can't be avoided.

Nations such a Canada, Germany, the UK, and France have different answers to this question, and most folks here would argue that all of these countries have good health care systems.

[OneBlueSky]

32. just cut out the "middle men" . . .

they're taking hundreds of billions of dollars and providing nothing in return . . .

we're paying them a third or more of out healthcare dollars to serve as gatekeepers whose sole function is to maximize their profits by a) increasing income (raising premiums and co-pays) and b) reducing expenses (limiting/denying benefits, and not covering those who need it most) . . . it makes NO sense whatsoever -- yet Congress and the president are building the "new" system on the existing, dysfunctional one . . .

cut out the middle men, and there will be plenty of money to cover everyone, and then some . . .